1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management apparatus, a management method, and a network system for configuring setting information that is to be unique to each device among various kinds of setting information for devices represented by multi-function printers, for example.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, devices represented by multi-function printers are installed in a customer environment, and thereafter replaced with latest models as the technology advances, rather than being used permanently. A task of transferring setting items from a replacement target device to a new replacement device needs to be performed to smoothly carry out business after the replacement, but there are several hundreds of setting items to be transferred in some cases, which increases the burden caused by the transferring task.
For this reason, a technique is proposed by which, for example, setting information of each user that was acquired in advance from a replacement target device by an administrator and transfer designation information for designating a transfer method are stored in a predetermined area in a new replacement device (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-079214). A user, when first logging into the new replacement device, transfers the setting information for the replacement target device in accordance with the transfer designation information.
However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-079214, consideration is not given to a method for transferring device-unique setting information represented by an IP address and a host name. Therefore, a device administrator needs to a device-unique setting information from the replacement target device in addition to the setting information of each user and manually transfer the device-unique setting information to the new replacement device.
Further, consideration is also not given to the case where a defect occurs in a system due to both the replacement target device and the new replacement device existing in the system after the device-unique setting information is transferred. For this reason, the device administrator needs to be careful to prevent both the replacement target device and the new replacement device from existing in the system by, for example, removing the replacement target device, which is a burden on the administrator.